How to Guarantee the Success of the Constituent Assembly

Published:First published inRabochy PutNo. 11, September 28 (15), 1917.

      Signed:N. Lenin.

      Published according to the text inRabochy Put.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 25,

      pages378-383.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.  

      2002You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ON FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

Inearly April, setting out the Bolsheviks’ attitude to the
    question of whether the Constituent Assembly should be convened, I
    wrote:

“Yes,and as soon as possible. But there is only one way to
    assure its convocation and success, and that is by increasing the
    number and strength of the Soviets and organising andarmingthe
    working-class masses. This is the only guarantee”
      (Political
    Parties in Russia and the Tasks of the Proletariat, Cheap Library
    ofZhizn i Znaniye, Book III, pp. 9 and
29).[1]

Fivemonths have passed since then and these words have been
    proved correct by several delays in and postponements of the
    convocation through the fault of the Cadets. And they have been
    well borne out by the Kornilov affair.

Now,in connection with the calling of the Democratic
    Conference on September 12, I should like to dwell on another
    aspect of the matter.

Boththe MenshevikRabochaya GazetaandDyelo Narodahave
    deplored the fact that very little is being done for campaigning
    among the peasants to enlighten this realmassof the Russian
    people, their real majority. Everyone realises and admits that the
    success of the Constituent Assembly depends on the enlightenment
    of the peasants, but ridiculously little is being done about
    it. The peasants are being deceived, fooled and intimidated by the
    utterly deceitfuland counter-revolutionary bourgeois and
    “yellow” press, in comparison with which the press of the
    Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries (not to speak of the
    Bolsheviks) is very, very weak.

Whyis that so?

Becausethe ruling S.R. and Menshevik parties are weak,
    hesitant and inactive, because, disagreeing that all power should
    be taken over by the Soviets, they leave the peasants in ignorance
    and solitude, a prey to the capitalists, totheirpress andtheirpropaganda.

Whileboastfully calling our revolution great and shouting to
    the right and left high-sounding, bombastic phrases about
    “revolutionary democracy”, the Mensheviks and S.R.s ineffectleave Russia in.the conditions of a most ordinary, most
    petty-bourgeois revolution which, having overthrown the tsar,
    leaves everything else unchanged and does nothing, absolutely
    nothing, effective to enlighten the peasants politically and to
    end the peasants’ ignorance, that last (and strongest) bulwark,
    thebulwarkof the exploiters and oppressors of the people.

Thisis the time to recall that. It is now, with the Democratic
    Conference before us, two months ahead of the “appointed”
    convocation of the Constituent Assembly (to be further postponed),
    that we must show how easily matters could be put right, how much
    could be done for the political education of the peasants, if
    only—if only our “revolutionary democrats” in inverted
    commas were really revolutionary, i.e., capable of acting in a
    revolutionary way, and really democratic, i.e., reckoning with the
    will and interests of the majority of the people, and not of the
    capitalist minority, which continues to hold power (the Kerensky
    government) and with which, either directly or indirectly, in a
    new or old form, the S.R.s and Mensheviks are still eager to
    compromise.

Thecapitalists (followed, either from stupidity or from
    inertia, by many S.R.s and Mensheviks) call “freedom of the
    press” a situation in which censorship has been abolished and
    all parties freely publish all kinds of papers.

Inreality it is not freedom of the press, but freedom for the
    rich, for the bourgeoisie, to deceive the oppressed and exploited
    mass of the people.

Indeed,take, say, the Petrograd and Moscow newspapers. You
    will see at once that it is the bourgeois
      papers—Rech,Birzherka,Novoye Vrernya,Russkoye
	Slovo[2],
      and so on, and so
    forth (for there are a great many papers of this sort)—that
    have by far the largest circulation. What makes for this
    prevalence? Not at all the will of the majority, for the elections
    have shown that in both capitals the majority (a gigantic
    majority, too) favours the democrats, i.e., the S.R.s, Mensheviks
    and Bolsheviks. These three parties command from three-quarters to
    four-fifths of the votes, while the circulation of the newspapers
    they publish is certainly less than a quarter, or even less than
    one-fifth, that of the whole bourgeois press (which, as we know
    and see now, supported the Kornilov affair directly and
    indirectly).

Whyis that so?

Everyoneknows very well why. Because the publication of a
    newspaper is a big and profitable capitalist undertaking in which
    the rich invest millions upon millions of rubles. “Freedom of
    the press” in bourgeois society means freedom for therichsystematically, unremittingly, daily, in millions of copies, to
    deceive, corrupt and fool the exploited and oppressed mass of the
    people, the poor.

Thisis the simple, generally known, obvious truth which
    everyone sees and realises but which “almost everyone”
    “bashfully” passes over in silence, timidly evades.

Thequestion is whether and how this crying evil can be
    fought.

Firstof all, there is a very simple, good and lawful means
    which I pointed out inPravdalong ago, which it is particularly
    opportune to recall now, before September 12, and which workers
    should always bear in mind, for they will hardly be able to do
    without it when they have won political power.

Thatmeans is a state monopoly on private press
    advertising.

LookatRusskoye Slovo,Novoye Vremya,Birzhevka,Rech,
    etc.—you will see a multitude of private advertisements, which
    yield a tremendous income, in fact theprincipal income, to their
    capitalist publishers. This is how bourgeois papers hold sway, how
    they get rich, andhow they deal in poison for the peopleall over
    the world.

InEurope there are newspapers which have a circulation as
    large as one-third the number of inhabitants of the town (for
    instance, 12,000 copies in a town with a population of 40,000) and
    are deliveredfree to every home, and yet yield their owners a
    sizable income. These papers live by advertisements paid by
    private people, while the free delivery of the paper to every home
    ensures the best circulation of the advertisements.

Thenwhy cannot democrats who call themselves revolutionary
    carry out a measure like declaring private press advertising a
    state monopoly, or banning advertisements anywhereoutsidethe
    newspapers published by the Soviets in the provincial towns and
    cities and by thecentral Sovietin Petrograd for the whole of
    Russia? Why must “revolutionary” democrats tolerate such a
    thing as the enrichment, through private advertising, of rich men,
    Kornilov backers, and spreaders of lies and slander against the
    Soviets?

Sucha measure would be absolutely just. It would greatly
    benefit both those who published private advertisements and the
    whole people, particularly the most oppressed and ignorant class,
    the peasants, who would be able to haveSovietpapers, with
    supplements for the peasants, at a very low price or even free of
    charge.

Whynot do that? Only because private property and hereditary
    rights (to profits from advertising) are sacred to the capitalist
    gentlemen. But how can anyone calling himself a revolutionary
    democrat in the twentieth century, in the second Russian
    revolution, recognise such rights as “sacred”?!

Somemay say it would mean infringing freedom of the press.

Thatis not true. It would mean extending and restoring freedom
    of the press, for freedom of the press means that all opinions ofallcitizens may be freely published.

Whatdo we have now? Now, the richalonehave this monopoly,
    and also the big parties. Yet if largeSovietnewspapers were to
    be published, with all advertisements,it would be perfectly
    feasible to guarantee the expression of their opinion to a much
    greater number of citizens—say to every group having collected
    a certain number of signatures. Freedom of the press wouldin practicebecome much more democratic, would become incomparably
    more complete as a result.

Butsome may ask: where would we get printing presses and
    newsprint?

Therewe have it!!! The issue is not “freedom of the press’
    but the exploiters’ sacrosanct ownership of the printing presses
    and stocks of newsprint they have seized!

Justwhy should we workers and peasants recognise that sacred
    right? How is that “right” to publish false information
    better than the “right” to own serfs?

Whyis it that in war-time all sorts of requisitioning—of
    houses, flats, vehicles, horses, grain and metals—are allowed
    and practised everywhere, while the requisitioning of printing
    presses and newsprint is impermissible?

Theworkers and peasants may in fact be deceived for a while if
    such measures are made out to be unjust or hard to realise, but
    the truth will win through in the end.

Statepower in the shape of the Soviets takesallthe printing
    presses andallthe newsprint and distributes themequitably: the
    state should come first—in the interests of the majority of the
    people, the majority of the poor, particularly the majority of the
    peasants, who for centuries have been tormented, crushed and
    stultified by the landowners and capitalists.

Thebig parties should come second—say, those that have
    polled one or two hundred thousand votes in both capitals.

Thesmaller parties should come third, and then any group of
    citizens which has a certain number of members or has collected a
    certain number of signatures.

Thisis the distribution of newsprint and printing presses that
    would be just and, with the Soviets in power, could be effected
    easily enough.

Then,two months before the Constituent Assembly, we could
    really help the peasants by ensuring the delivery toeveryvillage
    of half a dozen pamphlets (or newspaper issues, or special
      supplements) inmillionsof copies fromeverybig party.

Thatwould truly he a
      "revolutionary democratic" preparation for
    the elections to the Constituent Assembly; it would be aid to the
    countryside on the part of the advanced workers and soldiers. it
    would be state aid to the people’s enlightenment, and not to
    their stultification and deception; it would be real freedom of
    the pressfor all, and not for the rich. It would be a break with
    that accursed, slavish past which compels us to suffer the
    usurpation by the rich of the great cause of informing and
    teaching the peasants.

[1]Seepresent edition, Vol. 24, p. 99.—Ed.

[2]RusskoyeSlovo(The Russian Word)—a daily newspaper published
in Moscow from 1895 (the first, trial, issue appeared in 1894) by
I. D. Sytin. Nominally non-partisan, it upheld the interests of
the Russian bourgeoisie from a moderately liberal point of view.In 1917 it fully supported the bourgeois Provisional Government
and campaigned against Lenin and the Bolshevik Party.

Thepaper was closed down in November 1917 for carrying
slanderous anti-Soviet reports. From January 1918 on, it was
published for a period under the titles ofNovoye SlovoandNashe
Slovo. It was suppressed altogether in July 1918.